SHARON BOUCHER has done it again. She's coaxed a clever, heartwarming performance from a group of adult amateur actors and a motley assortment of really cute kids, this time in what she says is the West Coast premiere of "Shrek the Musical," a stage play based on the DreamWorks movie that in turn is a riff on "Beauty and the Beast."

Boucher's personal ebullience and perkiness overflow into this production in the San Rafael Community Center, just south of the B Street Safeway store. A legendary Marin vocal coach and musical theater maven, Boucher has long made a specialty of training kids in the basics of stage performance.

Each year, her North Bay Rep company puts on a couple of big musicals to showcase her students, an effort guaranteed to pack the cavernous community center with the cast's friends, families and neighbors. Sometimes her protégées move on to bigger roles in more high-profile productions, as has already happened with "Shrek's" Billy Baumeister, said to have landed a part in the upcoming Mountain Play. Certainly most of Boucher's students — child or adult — come away from her tutelage with improved performing skills and a big boost in confidence.

The story of "Shrek" adheres closely to many timeless fairy tales. It has an ugly ogre (Bruce Denker) who's been rejected by his parents, a charming princess (Sonia Perozzi) who sees Shrek's sweet soul beneath his hideous exterior, an evil overlord (Erik Jagger) and a massive red dragon (Boucher and four "dragoneers") that, like Shrek, is a good spirit despite a foreboding appearance. A nice touch is Gingy (Baumeister, or on alternate performances, Jared Steffen), a living, breathing gingerbread man who suffers the indignity of having his arm ripped off by Lord Farquaad, but who comes back stronger and more resilient than before.

It also has plenty of stock characters lifted straight from the fairy-tale warehouse, including a fairy godmother (Elaine Zimmerman), a wicked witch (Leslie Piper or Kristen Geller), a Sugar Plum fairy (Lucy Goldman or Nicole Shane), Cinderella (Abby Huffman), Sleeping Beauty (Maggie Huffman), plus Pinocchio, a Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty, Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Bears and the Three Blind Mice. It's a veritable cornucopia of fairy-tale overload, almost a convention of every magical character ever conceived, all of them dancing and singing. It's "Into the Woods" without a hint of cynicism.

The music is supplied by a live band. While not memorable, the songs are as lightweight and beguiling as the story itself, in which good overcomes evil and the good people live happily ever after. Mass vocal performances are delightful; individual performances range from "not bad" to surprisingly engaging.

Of course, the real hook with "Shrek the Musical" is neither the story nor the music, but the sheer overwhelming charm of a couple dozen kids in costume giving it their all onstage. Boucher has so many of them, in fact, that "Shrek" is double-cast. Simply managing this production seems a logistical nightmare, but Boucher brings it off seamlessly. It's a truly enjoyable show.